


catch a dying star, put it in your pocket

by mollivanders



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Vampire Turning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-22
Updated: 2010-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-30 11:02:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/331057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollivanders/pseuds/mollivanders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elena never expected Damon to refuse.</p><p>”It’s just a cautionary measure,” Stefan argues, trying to reason with his brother, but Damon shrugs away from his brother’s hand and downs his glass of whiskey before answering.</p>
            </blockquote>





	catch a dying star, put it in your pocket

**Author's Note:**

> **Title: catch a dying star, put it in your pocket**  
>  Fandom: The Vampire Diaries  
> Rating: PG-13  
> Characters: Damon/Elena, Stefan/Elena, Caroline, Bonnie, Jeremy  
> Author's Note: Set post 2x09 'Katerina.' I'm not sure what all the rules for vampires are in the world of TVD, so if I'm bending some... it's poetic license. There's a character death, though it's not permanent. Word count - 1,668.  
> Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Elena never expected Damon to refuse.

”It’s just a cautionary measure,” Stefan argues, trying to reason with his brother, but Damon shrugs away from his brother’s hand and downs his glass of whiskey before answering.

”You don’t want her turned any more than I do,” Damon insists before walking away.

Elena knows it’s not entirely true – knows Damon wants it more than Stefan, more than she could ever want it. She still wants her life (wants to get married, care for children, grow old) but that possibility dims with every passing hour and more than a full life, she wants _a_ life. She wants to care for her family, to keep them from the promise Katherine’s brought down on all their heads.

”You can try,” she decides, turning to Stefan. ”You can feed me your blood.”

(They’ve been over this – it won’t work – his blood is too weak to turn her, too weak to save her. With Damon refusing, they have little choice in the matter.)

It’s not like Rose is volunteering for another 500 years of flight.

Every night before he leaves, Stefan bites his arm open and lets Elena feed, a disgusted look on her face while she holds her breath until Stefan tells her it’s enough. She can feel echoes of him in her veins and sleeps uneasily, the same dream haunting her every night.

( _”God, I wish you didn’t have to forget this.”_ )

It starts nearly a week after Stefan first feeds her. She wakes in a cold sweat to find Stefan sleeping in the chair next to her bed, her window open (again). When she goes to close it, she notices someone else leaning against the porch struts, drinking something in a steel bottle.

(She doesn’t bother to shut her window.)

Elena never gets the full drift of her dream and forgets most of it by the time she wakes, by the time Stefan’s blood is passing out of her system, only to revisit it every night. 

Distracted by arguments with Caroline and Bonnie and Jeremy about whether to fight or run (she’s in favor of the former more and more), she never gets around to asking Damon why the hell he’s in her dreams every night.

It’s not like she’d give him the satisfaction anyway.

( _”I don't deserve you. But my brother does.”_ )

 

She wakes to a strange bellow outside the house and bolts upright, dressing quickly as she falls out her door to wake Jeremy. 

”Get up, get up, get up,” she orders him and he doesn’t argue, manages to grab his shoes before she’s leading him downstairs to the back door. “You have to get out of here,” she orders and Jeremy opens his mouth to protest before she pulls him into a hug. “Tell Jenna I’m sorry,” Elena adds before rushing to the front door, knowing Jeremy won’t leave Jenna to face a vampire attack alone.

Elena makes it outside in time to see Stefan take a slash to the throat, choking as he falls backward. Damon catches him and pushes him back to Elena, swinging a torch at the three vampires snarling as they advance towards her.

“Get him out of here!” Damon yells and Stefan shakes his head, snapping out of it before leaping back into the fray with his brother.

“You’re both insane,” Elena mutters before looking around and spotting Damon’s clumsily hidden pile of torches. “You’re not going in by yourself.”

 

She’s drifting in and out, images flashing before her when she opens her eyes and Elena realizes she’s being carried on a blanket somewhere. From somewhere very far away she hears Caroline urge someone else, “Faster, she doesn’t have much time!”

Elena raises a hand to her forehead, trying to stabilize herself, and pulls away from her own skin, horrified to find herself covered in blood.

“What happened?” she tries to ask, her voice a hoarse whisper. “Is Jeremy okay? Where is everyone?”

It’s Bonnie who leans down to check on her, presses her spare hand to her forehead and chants under her breath, her lungs shrinking under her chest as she tries harder and harder to heal Elena. 

“Why isn’t Stefan’s blood working?” Bonnie asks Caroline in frustration and Elena turns her head to watch Caroline shake her head, blonde hair sticking to her skin with blood. “It must not be enough. Damon said I had to give her my blood but I don’t want to turn her.”

There’s a pause before Bonnie answers and Elena feels a wisp of terror.

“We might have to.”

There’s a crunch of leaves under her as the girls set her down and Caroline comes in to full view, eyes meeting Elena’s.

“I won’t do it if you don’t want me to,” the other girl offers (knows Elena’s not all that Katherine, as much as she is).

Barely able to, Elena reaches for the other girl’s arm.

“Just in case,” she says (feels Bonnie grip her other hand). “And then we go back.”

 

When she comes to again, Bonnie and Caroline are watching her worriedly, hands clasping hers in the dirt until Elena sits up with a groan, wincing at the pain in her bones.

“I’m okay,” she insists. “We have to go back.”

“We don’t know where they are,” Caroline explains. “Damon and Stefan were setting a false trail for the other vampires to follow once we got you out of there.”

“Why were you there at all?” Elena asks, still confused. “Were you keeping watch with Damon?”  
Caroline and Bonnie exchange a surprised, knowing look before Bonnie answers.

“Jeremy called us,” she tells Elena, helping her stand. “He’s really mad at you, by the way.”

“But he’s okay,” Elena confirms and both girls nod at her. “So where are we going?”

“Stefan said to go back to the boarding house,” Caroline answers. “We can protect you there. Just in case,” she adds at the look on Elena’s face.

 

(They should have known better – there are three vampires waiting for them inside the house and when Caroline pulls a vampire off Bonnie, another vamp swings behind her to grab at Elena – she feels a sick crunch in her bones and wants to vomit before her head lolls back.)

 

“You were supposed to keep her safe,” Damon rages at Caroline and Elena smiles grimly to herself, sure the girl’s standing her ground. 

“If you were back here in time, she would be!”

“Guys – guys – this isn’t helping,” Stefan interjects and Elena cracks an eye open to see where she is. “The important thing is, they’re not coming back for her now.”

“I’d like to see the look on Elija’s face when he finds out,” Bonnie says darkly and Caroline shares a look with Stefan. “But you’re okay?” he asks Caroline, then Bonnie, who both shrug, looking more upset at what happened to Elena than what nearly happened to them.

“You’re awake,” Damon says at her ear and Elena startles, knowing he was there and not realizing it at the same time. “How?” she asks before her memory starts to come back, dread filling her stomach before she leans over the side of the couch and heaves, nothing coming out.

“That’ll pass,” Damon assures her, the others watching, before he sits next to her. “What do you remember?”

Across the room, Jeremy and Alaric are frozen at the kitchen entrance, a cup of blood in Jeremy’s hands, and Elena’s eyes lock on the pool of liquid.

“I’m hungry,” she whispers and Jeremy brings the glass over.

 

She stays at the boarding house that night in one of the spare rooms, Caroline and Bonnie lying on either side of her while Bonnie asks her if she has a preference on the kind of ring she wants. Down the hall, she can hear Jeremy and Alaric talking with the brothers about what’s to be done – whether it’s over now or if it’s just started.

Elena just wants to sleep.

( _”What I'm about to say is probably the most selfish thing I've ever said in my life,” Damon says and runs right past her objections, typically. “I just have to say it once. You just need to hear it. I love you, Elena. And it's because I love you that I can't be selfish with you. Why you can't know this. I don't deserve you - but my brother does. God I wish you didn't have to forget this, but you do.”_ )

She’s not surprised to find him not sleeping when she barges into his room, her blood (someone’s blood) boiling in her veins, angrier than she’s ever been in her life.

“How dare you,” Elena manages before she grabs at his throat and slams him backward over a desk, staring down at him, desperate for an outlet more than ever. “How _could_ you?”

Damon doesn’t answer at first, doesn’t pretend not to know what she’s talking about, just waits for her rage to simmer down before he grips her wrist and pulls her off him, standing within an inch of her to even the field.

“Because you didn’t need to hear me say it,” he answers and Elena wants to hurt him, wants to make him feel as empty as she does now that she remembers, so she shoves him back on his bed, trying to decide.

“Actually, I did,” she finally says. She can’t breathe, can’t feel her heart beating, can understand at last why he didn’t want her to turn so she presses her mouth to his, teeth clashing as she tries to feel something, feel alive, feel like this life she thought she still wanted was the right thing to do.

“Elena,” he protests and she pulls back, realizes he already feels as empty as she does now. 

“Does it get better?” she asks instead and slowly, Damon shakes his head, truthful at last, a glint in his eye as he gauges her reaction.

She kisses him again.

_Finis_


End file.
